Workforce Diversity in India!

Ensuring diversity of workforce is a prerogative for most companies worldwide. In USA, the historic origins of diversity lie in part in Equal Opportunity Employment Act. In one of the Scandinavian countries (Norway if I am not wrong) there is a mandate that 50% of the board members of all companies have to be women. There is currently an intense battle happening in UK between the government and Industry on issue of increased representation of women in the workforce.

What does diversity of workforce mean in Indian context?

Reservations in government services and in public educational institutions are the first overt measure we have seen towards this end.

India is a country of cultural diversity. This also gets reflected in the cosmopolitan nature of its cities – Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, etc. A company in India which broad-bases its recruitment from different parts of the country and different kinds of institutes usually has cultural diversity.

Meritocracy based entrance examinations for most institutions of higher education in India also ensure there is representation of people from different socio-economic backgrounds in companies.

The challenges in India seem to be around ‘gender diversity’, and ‘international workforce diversity’. ‘Gender diversity’ problem is something many companies have tried to consciously address for sometime. Many industries, specifically service industries, have seen significant increase in participation of women in workforce.

But what about ‘international workforce diversity’? Many Indian companies today are becoming multi-national. Do we see representation of their international (non-Indian) workforce in the company’s leadership? Is this international workforce considered a source of top leadership talent pipeline?

I don’t see much of ‘international diversity’ in manufacturing industries in India.

Maybe a good starting point for this would be ‘Skill based jobs’. In a survey done by Manpower in 2011, R&D jobs were found to be the ones for which companies in India faced most severe talent shortages.

Pharmaceutical companies and leading edge technology companies may soon become the torchbearers for ‘international workforce diversity’ in India.

Indian companies which are looking at using R&D capabilities as a source of competitive advantage might also turn to be the first to adapt an ‘internationally diverse workforce’ manpower model.

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Sourav